Congress dealt a huge blow to Trump's Russia plans, and the White House is already 'pushing back'

The Senate voted Wednesday, 97-2, to pass a measure that would
toughen sanctions on Russia and, in Republicans' first
significant blow to President Donald Trump's agenda, prevent the
White House from unilaterally easing or removing the sanctions
imposed by President Barack Obama in 2014 and 2016.

The bipartisan measure would require the president to inform
Congress before taking any action that could alter US foreign
policy "with regard to the Russian federation," including changes
to the sanctions regime imposed by Obama in response to Russia's
annexation of Crimea in 2014 and meddling in the 2016
presidential election.

Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Rand Paul were the only GOP members
to oppose the bill, which was cosponsored by Republicans Bob
Corker, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell.

The bill still needs to pass the House and be signed by Trump to
become law. But it seems likely to annoy the White House, which
began looking
into easing or lifting sanctions on Russia just days after
Trump was inaugurated. The inquiries
raised red flags among Obama-administration holdovers at the
State Department, who asked Congress to preempt any attempts by
Trump to alter the sanctions regime.

A senior White House official
inquired again in March, however, asking the State Department
to assess whether sanctions on Russia were harming US interests
and whether lifting them would increase Russia's oil production
and therefore help the American economy, according to The Daily
Beast.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declined to support the measure
when he appeared before the House Foreign Affairs and
Appropriations committees on Wednesday.

"I would urge Congress to ensure any legislation allows the
president to have the flexibility to adjust sanctions to meet the
needs of what is always an evolving diplomatic situation,"
Tillerson told lawmakers. "Essentially, we would ask for the
flexibility to turn the heat up when we need to, but also to
ensure that we have the ability to maintain a constructive
dialogue."

In addition to curbing the White House's power to act
unilaterally with regard to Russia, the bill calls for imposing
new sanctions on the Kremlin's military-intelligence and energy
sectors and "prohibiting access to the properties of the
Government of the Russian Federation" that Obama ordered vacated
last December.

If passed, the measure could hamper
ongoing talks between Trump administration officials and
their Kremlin counterparts to remove the "irritants" in their
relationship, beginning with the return of Russian diplomatic
compounds in the US that were seized by Obama last year.

Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, another of the bill's cosponsors,
told reporters on Wednesday that the White House was already
beginning to lobby against the measure.

"I know that some people in the White House are pushing back,"
Brown said. "People in the White House, we hear, are making calls
in the House to try to stop it, slow it, weaken it, dilute it."

A White House official told Business Insider on Wednesday that
the administration thought the bill, in its current form, "poses
a number of risks to the administration’s ability to conduct
foreign policy." The official noted, however, that the White
House was "still reviewing" the legislation and would not put out
a position until it is amended in the House and lands on Trump's
desk.

"Generally speaking, sanctions policies should be carefully
calibrated by the foreign policy experts in the executive
branch," the official added, noting that the administration
"remains committed" to the existing sanctions.